Sam Freilich

Contrary to popular belief, a fancy prose style reveals nothing. Just ask Donna Tartt, whose favorite book happens to be Lolita. Her prose is as ornate and lavish and baroque as any major contemporary writer. But…

We return to the scene of the crime in early May. In daylight, the MTA bus bench looks innocuous, but it has been the backdrop to violence. A young Korean-American woman named Juniper Song was knocked…

You probably know by now what a review of Tenth of December looks like: sugary veneration—nearly fealty—of a quote unquote master’s command of a genre. Part of what’s become unavoidable when talking about George Saunders’s new collection of…

The First Half My Super Bowl story is not unique. I had no rooting interest and followed the regular season with only passing interest. It probably wasn’t different from your Sunday (assuming you’re not from or…

Scientology! Auteurs! Handjobs and fingerblasting! A naked sand nymph! We here at Trop can’t think of a recent movie that’s inspired such an even mix of exaltation and exasperation as P.T. Anderson’s The Master. It’s plenty critically…

For all its postmodern affectations, the basic aims of HHhH, Laurent Binet’s debut novel (translated from French by Sam Taylor), can be reduced to the first line of The Aeneid. Binet sings of arms and two…

Ramona Ausubel’s debut novel, No One Is Here Except All of Us, feels worn and lived in, like an old church or synagogue, something you could step inside of. The title solicits our participation from the get-go, a kind…

A week ago, Ben Lerner won the Believer Book Award for his debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, beating out fellow Trop-approved author Jesse Ball. Ostensibly, Leaving the Atocha Station is a curious choice. It spurns…

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